Backbenchers form a smooth and orderly queue to put the boot into PM’S Brexit plan

Labour MPS wriggled with an air of giggly hysteria, as if the chamber had been filled with laughing gas

You’ve got to admire it, in a way. Yesterday afternoon, Theresa May informed the Commons, with a completely straight face, that she was delivering “a smooth and orderly Brexit”. Yes. That’s it. Smooth and orderly. As long as you don’t count the resignation of her Brexit Secretary, Brexit minister and Foreign Secretary. And a Tory MP telling her, in front of the House, that his activists felt so “betrayed” by her that they’d refused to campaign for the party. And another Tory MP telling her that her constituents believed “democracy is dead”. And the rumours that backbenchers were ready to call a vote of no confidence. All with just eight months to go until Britain leaves the EU.

But apart from those minor hiccups … smooth and orderly. Effortless. Not a cloud in the sky.

Still, at least some people were enjoying themselves. As the Prime Minister rose to tell the Commons about the marvellous Brexit plan her most senior Brexiteers had quit over, Labour MPS guffawed, waved goodbye, and hooted “Who’s next?” and “Any more for any more?” They wriggled with an air of giggly hysteria, as if the chamber had been pumped with laughing gas.

Disappointingly for them, David Davis, Steve Baker and Boris Johnson had not turned up to humiliate Mrs May in person, as Geoffrey Howe did when precipitating the fall of Margaret Thatcher. None the less, they honked with mirth when Mrs May drily thanked Mr Johnson for “the passion he’s demonstrated”. And honked even more when Tory Remainer Nicky Morgan mouthed: “With who?” Yet, for all the pressure she was under, Mrs May seemed remarkably – even eerily – composed. Perhaps she’s grown so used to humiliation that she no longer feels it. I suppose that if you can survive a party conference speech in which you get handed your P45, start hacking and wheezing like a set of bagpipes on 60 B&H a day, and dribble to a close while the set collapses about your ears, you come to believe you can survive anything. Coolly she told a seething Peter Bone (Con, Wellingborough) that, even if his activists wouldn’t campaign for her, they should campaign for “their excellent MP”. Calmly she told a glacial Andrea Jenkyns (Con, Morley & Outwood) that she would “deliver the Brexit people voted for, but in a way that ensures we protect jobs”. And with something close to élan she taunted Jeremy Corbyn for “wanting to trigger Article 50 the day after the referendum with no preparation whatsoever”. (As opposed to triggering it nine months after the referendum with no preparation whatsoever, which is apparently what Mrs May did.)

One Remainer who wasn’t enjoying herself was Plaid Cymru’s Liz Saville Roberts. If the UK didn’t stay in the single market and customs union, she snapped, “we will all wake up on March 30 next year without a functioning government”.

To which the only response is: how would we know the difference?